


We got fun and games

by blueticked



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:41:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24570961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueticked/pseuds/blueticked
Summary: It was a mistake to visit Scar in the forest.Bdubs knew he should never have returned.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 89





	We got fun and games

**Author's Note:**

> It's uh, not as dark as the summary might suggest.
> 
> I was reminded that in S5, Bdubs had the whole jungle taking over narrative going.

**UNSANITARY SCAR?**

"Oh no." Bdubs said. "Oh that's bad. Okay. Oh goodness me. We've got bad press."

"Yeah," Beef chuckled.

"Understandable. We will fix this. Thanks, Beef," Bdubs handed the newspaper back to Beef.

"He hasn't lost my support forever! Just ask him to stop licking things," Beef told him and waved his goodbye.

"Oh yes, of course," Bdubs replied, already distracted, pulling out his communicator and typing out an urgent message to Scar.

He leaned against the brick pillar of Scar's poll booth, tapping the communicator impatiently. Scar's lack of an instant response had him anxious. This news article was a major hit to their mayoral campaign and it was not something he could allow to circulate anymore. Who knows who else had read it; who else had withdrawn their support for Scar?!

Bdubs pulled out his rockets and propelled towards the direction of Scar's base. He couldn't wait for Scar's reply; he needed to find Scar immediately. Scar must have forgotten to bring his communicator along to a building session again.

He knew that Scar was somewhere in the jungle but he didn't know exactly where Scar was. Catching sight of Iskall's mega tree, Bdubs landed in front of it and proceeded to walk into the depth of the jungle, searching for signs of the 'misfit magical village' Scar had made his home in.

The uncleared jungle between bases was as dense as ever. Leaves and branches from stubby ground trees got caught in his shoes. He couldn't walk a couple of steps without kicking a hidden tree stump and almost falling, losing his balance. Vines crept down the tree trunks and crawled across the jungle floor, others hanging down from the leaves and dangling in his face as he pushed them aside to advance through the jungle.

Bdubs didn't understand why so many hermits had decided to live in the jungle this time. Clearing a jungle to make space for a simple starter base was not easy, let alone deciding to settle down in the jungle itself. He'd know; he had tried to live in the jungle before. It hadn't been a particularly pleasant experience.

It wasn't just the annoyance of clearing jungle land, either. It was the way everything looked the same and it was impossible to orientate yourself in the jungle. You could walk a straight line and hope to eventually reach another biome, but lo and behold, as you weaved through the trees, you had been walking in a never-ending triangle instead. It was the backstabbing canopy shade, only casting shadows over the ground, allowing mobs to spawn. Even if you lit every trunk, every patch of land between the leaves, the creepers would find their way to you. And the darkness made it even harder to navigate, the humidity made it impossible to breathe. Bdubs didn't know if the list above were attributing factors, but you could hear voices in the jungle. Whispers in the wind, conversations threading between the trees. You'd think another hermit was just around the corner with the rustling leaves and the sound of footsteps and a clear grunt of effort in time with the smack of an axe against the trees, but walk towards the spot of the sound and you would find nothing. It was like a mirage in the jungle, and Bdubs hated it.

It was already happening to him. The vines in front of his face were blending together; his hands had threaded through so many that Bdubs just felt their veiny textures twined around his arms now. His feet were constantly trapped between leaves and vines, holding him down, pulling him in place. He could hear the voices, all the voices he remembered from all those worlds ago.

_BdoubleO._

Bdubs instinctively turned behind him, where the voice had come from, then mentally smacked himself in the face and whirled back around. He knew better than to listen to the voices in the jungle. He had to keep walking straight. How hadn't he found Scar's village yet? It had to be close by. He had to keep walking straight.

_BdoubleO!_

"No!" Bdubs couldn't help the yell that escaped his lips, dry desperation in the weak croak that emerged. He turned to his right, where the voice had come from. Nothing. No one. Just jungle trees and vines and leaves. He had to stop listening to the voices. He had to keep walking straight.

_Follow us._

"Leave me alone!" Bdubs snapped around to his left and waved a shooing hand in the general direction of the voice. His fingers caught a cascading vine from above and became trapped, as though he was the fly in the jungle web. As he stood still, his feet only sank deeper into the layers of leaves on the ground. He would be trapped if he stood here any longer.

No, he would not allow himself to be trapped in the jungle again.

Bdubs used all his energy and pulled on the vine trapping his hand, forcing it to fall to the ground. He tried to use his other hand to tug it off, but pulling on the entangling mess of vines only caused its knots to tighten, thinning into a straight line. Now he had a vine tied to his hand, and waving it around was like an extended, flexible sword he could weld.

Well, all the better to fight off the voices with, he supposed. He'd need to ask Scar for some shears to chop it off. Walk straight. He had to walk straight.

_Follow us. We'll take you to Scar's._

Bdubs turned away from the voice and tried to lift a foot, shuddering at the cold mush of leaves trawling against his calf that he had to pull his leg out from. His shoes squelched against the leaves, already soggy and disgusting.

It wasn't just the slimy jungle floor. It was so hot, his perspiration was soaking his long sleeves and pants. This was why he had a jungle get-up with singlets and what-nots when he lived in the jungle. It was simply too hot for sleeves.

Bdubs paused next to a jungle tree to kick his shoes off, leaning against a trunk for support as he did so. He bent over and rolled up his long pants, then pushed up the sleeves of his long tee as well.

Something brushed against his back, like the lingering touch of a hand.

Bdubs whirled around.

Nothing.

_This way to Scar's,_ said the jungle in the direction he was now facing, which was the opposite line of where he had been walking. There was nothing but jungle - jungle he must have walked past to get here - in front of him.

Bdubs turned back to face the front. Was it the front? Everything in every direction looked the same. The jungle was closing in on him. There was nothing but trees and leaves and vines and vines and leaves and trees.

There was nothing to guide him out.

He was part of the jungle now. Trapped. Taken. Tree-ed. He was a tree trunk, and vines were winding themselves around him, holding him in place. This was his home now.

Something soft pressed itself into his hand - a leaf, maybe? It made the vine tied to his hand react, lashing out at the leaf that startled him. Dumb leaf. A hard square box was pressed into his other hand. A chunk of wood? Holding it somehow made him feel better. Comforted. The jungle wasn't such a scary place anymore.

He could trust it, maybe.

_BdoubleO. This way. Follow me._ The jungle spoke to him again. This time, he listened. Bdubs, with great difficulty, pulled a rooted leg off the ground and followed, one heavy step after another.

Scar. He had to get to Scar.

Scar emerged from the underground mines to his communicator beeping rapidly as connection was reestablished.

**BdoubleO100: Scar! Where are you?**

**BdoubleO100: meeting, town hall, now**

**BdoubleO100: important**

**BdoubleO100: emergency**

**BdoubleO100: okay I'm coming to you**

Oh boy. It had to be bad news if Bdubs was insistent on meeting him immediately. He should probably drop off his shulker boxes of mined goodies at Larry before responding to Bdubs - unless, of course, Bdubs was already waiting for him outside Larry.

Scar wondered if Bdubs would indeed be at Larry. Bdubs hadn't sent another message after stating that he would be coming, so he must have found his way, and was probably waiting for Scar impatiently.

Scar picked up his pace. He wouldn't want his campaign captain to be angry at him. He had given Bdubs many reasons to be angry at him, messing up his requests and suggestions again and again. Bdubs had always been generously patient, but that didn't stop Scar from feeling bad about it. Whatever happened this time couldn't have been Scar's fault though; he had been down in the mines all day and hadn't worked on his campaign at all today. Still, it was better safe than sorry.

Bdubs wasn't at Larry, he wasn't inside Larry, and he didn't seem to be in any of the village houses. Where could he be? Had he wandered off to Grian's place? There was not really anywhere else Bdubs could go from here.

Scar cast his gaze across the lake and sure enough, he caught a flash of Bdubs' white top in between the green of the jungle - Bdubs was in the uncleared area at the back of Grian's place, where Scar had tried to trap Grian with TNT-rigged cake before.

"Bdubs!" Scar called out, employing a rocket to fly the distance over the water, landing just in front of the uncleared jungle. He pushed away the vines and stomped in, making his way towards Bdubs. "Bdubs, over here!"

Bdubs turned around, but it didn't seem to be because he had heard Scar. He looked right at Scar, but at the same time, his glazed eyes looked right through Scar.

There was a green tint in Bdubs' black eyes, the same green colour of the vines that were slithering along his arms, wrapping around his torso, tying him to the ground. Bdubs was losing himself in the presence of magic - Scar could tell - nature magic that was emerging from Bdubs himself.

What was going on? Why wasn't Bdubs welding his magic, channeling it properly? Why was he allowing it to control him instead?

The green glow of his eyes brightened with every passing second, reflecting the growing strength of his magic whipping through the jungle. Being in the dense jungle enhanced Bdubs' magic; nature was responding to him, calling him, letting him know that they were there for him.

And yet, Bdubs' body language was one of panic. His breathing came in uneven heaves and his hands fumbled through leaves and vines that should feel natural to someone with his magical affinity for nature. The more he struggled, the more nature tried to help him, tried to soothe him, tried to calm him by holding him down. That only caused him to fight harder against nature, panicked magic hurling loose around him, which created the loop of nature attempting to hold him down more firmly.

_Bdubs didn't know that he had magic_ , was Scar's observational takeaway. His internal magic essence recognised the jungle as a friend and attempted to bring it closer to him. Bdubs' logical and rational mind was rejecting it, viewing the moving, creeping vines as attempting to restrict him instead of helping him. He didn't know why the vines were moving, didn't know why they were trying to trap him and the more he panicked, the more he refused to recognise and weld his own magic around him, the stronger and more insistent it became in its attempt to help Bdubs come to terms with its magical existence.

This was what caused Bdubs' jungle madness in Season 5. Scar recognized it now, though he didn't back then when he was still new to magic himself. Bdubs' magical affinity with nature went ignored for too long: living in the jungle placed him in a situation that enhanced his magic but his inability to control it led to the extent that the magic eventually controlled _him_ in its attempt to help him. Bdubs hadn't been going mad, he hadn't been losing his mind - he had been overwhelmed by growing magic he was unaware of.

It was a good thing Scar was a certified wizard now, with experience with magic of all kinds. He knew how to pull Bdubs out of the magical daze before it claimed him again, and the first step was to lead him out of the jungle.

"Bdubs," Scar tried again, keeping his voice soft as he approached. Bdubs didn't react to his name, which didn't particularly surprise Scar. He must be hearing the call of the jungle at every turn. He probably couldn't separate reality from magic anymore.

Scar reached out to take Bdubs' vine-tangled hand in his. Vines came alive and whipped against Scar's arm, an unconscious defensive tactic Bdubs employed to protect himself from the sudden touch. Scar bore the pain, took a deep breath, and pressed a crystal into Bdubs' other hand.

It absorbed most of Bdubs' uncontrolled magic, drawing him back to reality. Scar exhaled in relief, a breath of air he hadn't realised he had been holding. Bdubs blinked his glazed green eyes - that was a sign that he was aware of his physicality again.

"BdoubleO," Scar spoke softly, "This way. Follow me."

Bdubs offered no resistance as he followed, though the vines and leaves seemed to purposely block their way, wanting to keep Bdubs with them, and moving towards the edge of the jungle took much longer than it should.

The vines that had attached themselves to Bdubs wound close to his limbs as they exited the forest, alive in Bdubs' magic, hovering off his body like snakes and watching Scar warily. Scar smiled at the vines as he led Bdubs around the lake and towards his cleared jungle area, approaching Larry the snail.

Scar climbed the ladder and looked down at Bdubs on the ground, gesturing for Bdubs to follow. Bdubs blinked, still unseeing, unaware of Scar's presence. His vines reacted for him, unwinding, and with magical energy they simply lifted him off the ground and placed him down beside Scar before returning to their respective spots on his body.

Scar led Bdubs up to his bed and eased him to sit on it, then lie down. He tugged on the magic-filled crystal in Bdubs' hand and Bdubs released his grip on it, allowing Scar to take it from him.

The loss of the crystal and the excessive magic in it seemed to drain the energy from Bdubs and exhaustion seemed to finally hit him. Bdubs' eyelids lowered, his breathing evened out, and the vines curled up like little pets beside his body as Bdubs fell into a deep sleep.

Bdubs sat up in bed, startled awake.

He was lying in Scar's bed, dead leaves and vines littering the bed beneath him. Gosh, he must have emerged with a mess of plants sticking to him out of the jungle.

How did he get here? Scar must have found and rescued him. He had absolutely no memory of it.

"Hey," Scar greeted from where he was sitting on the wooden chair next to the bed. He had been watching Bdubs sleep. "Feel better?"

"I guess," Bdubs shrugged lightly. "How did you find me? The jungle is a maze!"

Scar gave him a small smile and reached into the pocket of his robes, pulling out a glowing green crystal.

"What's that?"

"Do you trust me, Bdubs?"

That was not the response Bdubs had been expecting.

"Well, yeah, I- I guess?" Bdubs stammered, then cleared his throat and collected himself. "I suppose so? I mean, I'm voting for you as mayor, so I have to trust you quite a bit-"

"Do you promise not to panic?" Bdubs had never heard Scar sound so serious.

"Y-yeah, I promise," Bubs said.

"Hold your hand out," Scar said and Bdubs did as he was told. "I'll be right here," Scar promised, and the crystal was pressed into Bdubs' palm.

_BdoubleO._

No. The voices were back. He wasn't safe, not even in a jungle clearing. He couldn't escape the jungle. It was closing in on him. He had to leave. He couldn't leave. He had to try.

The withered leaves and vines on the bed came back to life. They were slithering across the bed, reaching for him. They were going to trap him again. Root him into the ground. Turn him into a tree. Make him part of the forest.

He had to leave. He had to escape from here. Bdubs jumped out of the bed, backing away from the plants. Someone grasped his free hand. It was Scar. Scar was here with him.

"I'm right here, Bdubs," Scar spoke in a low voice, careful not to startle him. Scar didn't understand why Bdubs was afraid. He didn't realise how dangerous the jungle was.

"We have to leave," Bdubs gasped, and pulled him towards the door.

"The plants aren't attacking you, Bdubs," Scar raised his voice, soft but firm. He held Bdubs back, away from the door - since when was Scar this strong? "Don't panic. Breathe and take another look."

Bdubs breathed and turned back to face the plants on the bed.

_BdoubleO._

Nope. Nope. They were still writhing and moving and growing - geez they were growing, multiplying. They were going to consume the room and suffocate himself and Scar. They were definitely on the attack.

Him and Scar really had to leave.

"Do you feel it?" Scar asked instead, and gestured around, unperturbed by the growing greenery in his bedroom. Bdubs returned a blank stare, and Scar gestured at the crystal in his hand instead.

Bdubs looked down at the crystal - yes - yes, he could feel it pulsing in his hand, light glowing from within. There was a strange sort of energy emitting from it. It felt _familiar_. He had experienced this before, this sort of energy around him. It was contained now, within the crystal, instead of whipping in the air around him. Instead of seeping through the roots and veins of the plants around him. Instead of clogging his mind and his heart.

He recognised it. It felt like - like _jungle_.

_BdoubleO._

Scar grabbed his hand clutching the crystal, forcing Bdubs to hold on to it, as though he knew Bdubs was about to hurl it away. He eased Bdubs' fingers apart slowly, taking the crystal carefully from him, without resistance from Bdubs himself.

The overwhelming sense of the jungle was gone. The leaves were drying, the vines were dying. The voices were gone. He didn't feel suffocated by the heat, by the density of the jungle anymore.

Though, now that he could recognize and isolate that particular energy, there was a low hum coming from the jungle. He could feel it vibrating in his veins, resonating in his heart. He could hear the rustle of the leaves, the flitter of vines in the wind. The jungle was still calling, and something in him wanted to return to it this time.

Bdubs shook his head slightly, trying to clear his mind. He was going crazy again. Why would he want to return to that dangerous place? At least, not now. Maybe later. Besides, he felt tired again, as though he hadn't just woken up from a nap. Bdubs leaned back against the wall of the snail and stifled a yawn.

"Magic does that to you," Scar said sympathetically.

"...what?"

"It's magic," Scar repeated. "You have magic, Bdubs."

"No, I don't. I'm no magic man."

"I'll introduce it to you again another time, in controlled amounts, now that we have it in the crystal," Scar patted his hand. "You won't be overwhelmed by it in the jungle anymore. I'll teach you how to handle it."

"Don't worry, I'm never coming back into the jungle again," Bdubs swore. Scar only smiled, a twinkle in his eyes, as though he knew something Bdubs didn't.

"What were you looking for me for?" Scar changed the subject.

Bdubs thought for a bit.

"Y'know what, I can't remember," Bdubs admitted. He couldn't really be blamed for forgetting; so much had happened in the span of a few hours.

"If you forgot then it probably wasn't important," Scar assured.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Bdubs shrugged.

"I've decided today," Cub told Beef, "that due to some recent allegations in the Herald of diamond licking, I'm going to unsupport Scar for mayor."

"I know, so did I," Beef shook his head slightly. "He was such a strong candidate, too."

"What a waste," Cub lamented.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought?


End file.
